Afgan Biscuits!

Yum - even with watery icing!

At the school I used to work at in Singapore we used to have a fantastic "Mum's Canteen". The mum's that ran it were the best and they made great food that always made me homesick for Australia. My all time favourite treat was Afghan biscuits. Years later I shared this story with my mother-in-law who promptly found a recipe and now makes them for me every time we visit home. Thank you Sandy! 


On this rainy Saturday morning I decided to make some Afghan biscuits with my 22 month son. We had lots of fun and obviously the best bit for him (and me) is licking the spoon at the end. He loved how crunchy the biscuits are and I just love them!

Keep your eyes on the mix!

Here's what you need for the biscuits:
200 g butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup corn flakes, slightly crushed
1/2 cup desiccated coconut 


Here's what you need for the icing**:
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
2 tablespoons water
walnuts (to decorate if you want) 


Here's what you do:
Preheat oven to 180c and use baking paper to line some baking trays (I use pizza trays). When the butter is soft place it and the sugar in to your mixing bowl. I used my KitchenAid to cream it together until it was light and fluffy. In a separate bowl mix the flour and cocoa together. It is better to use a sifter but I am not sure if my son would have the patience for this so I just mixed them both straight from the packet. When mixed through add it to the butter and sugar mixture.

Lots of fun

Add the crushed cornflakes (my son had lots of fun helping with this) and the coconut to the bowl . Mix through until all blended well. Spoon teaspoon sized portions of batter onto your lined trays. It's important to know that the cookies won't spread or rise. If you want flat cookies be sure to press them down.  Bake in your oven for 15-20mins. This recipe made abut 24 small biscuits. When ready let cool then make the icing and ice. Traditionally afghan biscuits are served with a walnut decoration but also delicious on their own. Enjoy! 


**my icing turned out very watery. If you have a great recipe for icing please leave a comment and share!

Roasted Pumpkin Sauce with Fettuccine

Pumpkin sauce pasta

This is one of my all time favourite pasta sauces and dinners. So easy and tasty. The best part about it is that you can add to the sauce. Next time I might add some fried bacon and pine nuts, even pesto. You can even use the sauce to stuff portobello mushrooms. The recipe was adapted from the Family Circle Quick Pasta Cookbook and originally says to use pappardelle pasta but I couldn't find any so used regular fettucine. The recipe also says to use butternut pumpkin but as I live in Thailand it was a lot cheaper for me to use chinese pumpkin and it still tasted great. I cooked the whole packet of pasta and it served 2 adults and 3 toddler serves.

Bake for 30mins

Here's what you need:
1 packet of pasta (papperdelle recommended)
1.4kg pumpkin, deseeded, cut in 2cm chunks
4 garlic cloves, crushed
100ml olive oil
3 tablespoons thyme leaves
salt to season
3/4 cup hot stock (vegetable or chicken)
2 tablespoons cream
Parmesan, grated to season at end

Here's what you do:
Preheat your oven to 200C and place water in a pan for the pasta and bring to the boil. Cut your pumpkin into 2cm chunks with the skin and seeds removed. Place in a baking tray and coat with the crushed garlic, thyme leaves and 60ml of the olive oil. Season with salt and place in the oven for 30mins. Place the pasta in the salted, boiling water and cook for about 12mins. When cooked, drain and pour the remaining 40ml of olive oil through the pasta. Keep the pasta warm.

Take the pumpkin out of the oven and place all contents of the baking tray in a Magimix or other food processor. Add the hot stock and cream and mix together. Pour the sauce over the pasta and stir through. That's it! Serve topped with parmesan cheese and thyme leaves if you want. Enjoy!

Coconut Chocolate Slice (egg free)

Won't last long

I made this slice to bring to lunch with friends today and also because it's one of my favourite slices. It is the first slice I ever made as teenager. I have no idea where the recipe comes from but I haven't changed it throughout the years. I was tempted to add some crushed cornflakes just for a change but I just love it the way it is. Apparently the recipe makes 30 pieces but I tend to cut the slice into bigger portions and it is usually all gone in 2 days! This recipe made 24 pieces (well ok, about 28, but there are now 24 in the container).

Here's what you need for slice:
1.5 cup flour (I used self-raising, but have used plain before. I might use wholewheat next time)
1 cup brown sugar (you can use caster sugar too)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/3 cup dessicated coconut
240g, melted & cooled butter (it's important to let the butter cool before adding)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pat the mix down evenly

For the icing:
2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
60g melted butter
2-3 tbspn hot water

Here's what you do:
Preheat the oven to 180C, grease & line a baking tray and melt the butter. Set the butter aside for it to cool. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Keep turning the mix over, making sure to blend the ingredients well. When the butter is cool add it and the vanilla extract. I stir the butter in for a bit but then use my hands to mix everything together. Use your hands to place the mix in your tray and spread out evenly. Bake for about 15-20mins, or place a toothpick in and when it's clean, take it out.

Leave the slice to cool completely, Make and spread the icing out and then sprinkle with coconut on the top. Cut into servings. I keep the slice in a tupperware container in the fridge due to the heat. If you have any variations to this recipe I'd love to know. Enjoy!

an old favourite

**Lemon Pie** (mum-in-law's recipe) DELICIOUS! DELICIOUS!

Seriously delicious!

As we live in Thailand throughout the year I create a list of all the things I will eat (and do) when we visit home, Australia, for our holiday. Definitely in my top 3 eat list is my mother-in-law Sandy's Lemon Pie. I seriously LOVE this pie and literally wait all year for a slice (or 5!). So I was excited knowing that Sandy was coming to visit us here in Bangkok and now that I have a food blog I decided to challenge myself and ask Sandy to walk me through the recipe. Keep in mind that I have NEVER, EVER, made pastry from scratch before but how hard could it be...


Here's what you need for the pastry:
200g plain flour

Oscar inspecting the pastry and filling

130grams butter (room temperature)
70g caster sugar
1 egg

Here's what you need for the filling:
4 lemons zested
250ml fresh lemon juice (from the ones you zested)
9 eggs
375g caster sugar
300ml cream

Here's what you do: (I tried to take lots of photos to document my experience)

Prepare the pastry and filling first thing in the morning. I prepared everything at 7:30am and then cooked it later the same day at 7pm. As I live in Bangkok though the humidity is so bad at the moment that it was better for the pastry to be made early. You can use your hands or a processor to make the pastry. I used my KitchenAid, Sandy always uses her Magimix.

Pastry #1: 
Combine the sugar and flour mixture and then add the butter. After about 30 seconds mixing, add the egg. Combine ingredients until it has formed a smooth dough. Take out of the bowl and roll in to a ball. Cover with cling wrap and place in the fridge for at least 1-3 hours or overnight if you wish. It will feel like it has turned rock hard but that's ok. This is the easy part I discovered!

Love my juicer

Filling:
Zest and juice the lemons (this was my least favourite part). I was happy to bring out my awesome juicer that we picked up in Turkey. Mix the eggs, cream, sugar, juice and zest all together. I used the whisk component of my KitchenAid. Pour mixture in a tupperware container or keep in bowl and place in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Pastry/Filling #2:
It's now 6pm so pastry has been sitting in the fridge for about 10 hours. Preheat your oven to 160C and take out the pastry ball and lemon filling. Generously flour a surface on your kitchen bench and gently pat and roll your pastry. Use a floured rolling pin, start at the centre to roll the pastry out into a circular shape a bit bigger than your pie dish. You might have to stop regularly and piece the pastry back together on the side. Make sure it's not rolled too thin and keep adding flour under the pastry to stop it sticking.

Oh dear...

Now... the tricky part!!! Carefully pick up your pastry and line a deep pie dish. As you can see from the photo I need a lot of help in this department! What a mess! We had a good laugh, blamed it on the humidity and set about piecing the pastry back together again. I knew there was a reason I have never made pasty before!

Patched all up, looks great

If you're lucky then yours would have stayed together nicely and ended up looking like this photo to the right. Now that the pastry is covering the base and edges of the dish, line the base with baking paper and bake at 160C. I covered the baking paper with pie weights (ceramic balls - gift from Sandy). Bake the pastry for about 10minutes, but maybe less, check on it and once it is slightly brown take it out of the oven, discard the baking paper and store the pie weights.

Reduce the oven temperature to 150C. You might want to use a sieve to pour your filling through before baking. Sandy sometimes leaves the zest in but sometimes sifts it out, up to you. We poured it through a sieve first. Evenly pour the lemon filling around the pastry but not up to brim, leave about 3/4 cm gap or a bit more from the top. If you have left over filling pour these into greased ramekin bowls and bake at the same time. These can be crustless pies! Now....so super carefully carry the dish to the oven.

Bake the pie at 150C for approximately 45mins-1hr. Mine cooked faster than I thought, check it by gently pressing the centre. It should be spongy and rise back when pressed.

Take it out of the oven and serve with ice-cream or just cream. Seriously delicious and no where near as hard as I thought. I felt like a Masterchef contestant afterwards and so proud of myself! THANK YOU SANDY! xoxo

No leftovers - ever!

3 Recipe Treat - what to do with the bits & pieces!

I don't know if your fridge is anything like my fridge but today I literally had 3 mushrooms, a carrot, left over sweet corn and some zucchinis. I also had a toddler clinging to my left leg who seems to have discovered his inner whining voice and was very busy 'telling' me he was hungry. So I quickly slapped some cheese on bread, gave Oscar his cheese sandwich and within 20 minutes had whipped up 3 toddler friendly meals, used up all those annoying half-eaten ingredients and stocked my freezer! Then when Oscar had his nap, I ate my pasta salad that I made yesterday and read my book for 20 mins guilt-free, a good day so far!

Recipe #1: Vegetable Pancakes

Vegetable Pancake stack - yum!

The recipe below makes about 13 pancakes but I ate 3 of them (!!) so was able to freeze 10. I don't include sugar in my pancake recipe as I would rather not cook with it. I used wholewheat flour for the first time today too.

Here's what you need:
any leftover vegetables hiding in your fridge! I used:
half a grated zucchini/courgette
half a large grated carrot
1/2 cup of sweet corn
1 egg
1 cup wholewheat flour
1 cup milk
little bit of baking soda

Here's what you do:
Mix the flour, milk, egg, baking soda together with a wooden spoon. Originally I used only 3/4 milk but it was quite dry so I added an extra 1/4 milk. Add all the vegetables and mix through. Heat a little olive oil in a frypan on medium heat and then using a normal spoon to scoop the batter out and place in the pan. I cooked 5 at a time. Turn after 1 minute or so, or until golden brown on each side and place on sorbent towel to cool. Repeat until all cooked. You could spread some cream cheese on top to serve if you find them a little dry. When cooled, wrap in foil and freeze. Enjoy!

Yum!

Recipe #2: Vegetable Frittata
Oscar is egg crazy, he likes them anyway they can be made which makes life easy on a Sunday morning when I want a no-fuss breakfast. I just scramble or boil an egg and he is happy. I love frittata though and the best part is if your child is fussy you can hide loads of vegetables in them which I did today. This recipe made 3 frittatas. They are perfect for freezing and for lunch or dinner, kids or adults!



Here's what you need:

any leftover vegetables hiding in your fridge! Chopped capsicum/peppers work well. I used:

half a grated zucchini/courgette

half a large grated carrot

1/2 cup of sweet corn

3 mushrooms sliced

3 eggs, whisked

grated cheese, I used Montgomery Jack as that's what was in the fridge.

Here's what you do:

Grease 3 ramekin dishes (ceramic are best) and preheat the oven to 180C. In a medium bowl add all your vegetables and cheese and stir together. Add salt or pepper if you want. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs. Place the vegetable mix evenly in your 3 dishes. Pour the whisked eggs evenly over the top in each dish. Bake in the oven for 20mins. When cool, run a knife along the edge and carefully tip the frittata out and allow to cool. Enjoy!

Soft inside, crunchy outside = yum!

Recipe #3: Cheesy Crumbed Courgette
These would have to be one of Oscar's favourite snacks. So quick & easy I like to have them handy in the fridge or freezer. The best part about them is that the zucchini/courgette stays so soft but the outside is crunchy. The cheese also takes away the sometimes bitter taste of zucchini.

Here's what you need:
1 zucchini/courgette washed, ends trimmed. Do not peel.
1 whisked egg
some plain flour
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parmesan or other cheese
olive oil

Here's what you do:
Mix the cheese and breadcrumbs together in a bowl or plate. After you have trimmed the ends off your zucchini cut it in half lengthways and horizontally. Cut those pieces in half again, and continue to half until you have about 12-13 pieces. Lightly coat the zucchini in the flour, dip them into the egg and then cover with the breadcrumb/cheese mix. Heat a little olive or vegetable oil over a medium heat and lightly fry the zucchini until they are golden in colour. Turn them occasionally to cook evenly. I freeze mine in groups of 3. Enjoy!

Breakfast Bacon & Egg *Pie*

Perfect breakfast treat

I've said this before but I love Donna Hay and her Fast, Fresh, Simple cookbook. It's just beautiful to look at plus the recipes are super easy to make. It makes a perfect gift or just a treat for yourself. One of the first recipes I bookmarked to try was the Bacon & Egg Pie. Now, it's not a pie. There is no pastry, but you can cook it in a pie tin and it stays together like a pie. I've made this previously for a Sunday breakfast and today I made it to welcome my husband's parents who are visiting us here in Thailand for the week. This is child and adult friendly and seriously easy and delicious!

*apologies about the photos, my main camera ran out of battery.

Ingredients

Here's what you need: (will make 4 *pies*)
6 rashes thinly sliced bacon. Take off the rind.
6 eggs
1 cup (240g) of creme fraiche (or sour cream)
2 tablespoons of flat parsley leaf (I used chives this time)






Here's what you do: 

Get all your ingredients out ready and turn the oven on to 180C. Use butter or spray to grease 4 pie tins or ramekin dishes. I used ceramic ramekin dishes as that's what I have in my cupboards. I also found that the pies pop straight of the ceramic dishes but stuck to the sides of my glass ramekin dish.

Ready to pop in the oven

Line the ramekin dish with the bacon strips (1.5 rashes fits around nicely) and gently push the bacon to the edges to keep it in place. Put the eggs, creme fraiche, parsley in a bowl and use a whisk to mix together. Keep whisking until all lumps from the creme fraiche disappear. Share out the mix evenly between your 4 dishes and then bake in the oven for 25minutes. The mix will rise quite high and look fluffy.

Take them out of the oven and using a table knife run along the edges to loosen any egg or bacon attached to the sides. If you used a ceramic dish or pie tin they should just pop out. If not, carefully work them out of the dish with the knife. Use an oven glove as the dish will be hot.

I served them on top of half a toasted english muffin and added a few strawberries. Enjoy!

Chocolate & Cinnamon Wontons

Seriously tasty!

I think I have just found my new favourite dessert. After an early dinner and once Oscar was in bed I quickly decided to try a recipe I have been staring at for a couple of months in my Donna Hay: Fast, Fresh, Simple cookbook. I just love the look of Donna Hay's book and love turning through the pages.

I love dark chocolate and cinnamon but was a bit weary of the wonton mix. Well, all up it took me 10mins from start to finish and I am betting by years end I would have eaten more wontons than I can remember. The count is at 8 so far!

Here's what you need: (to make 16, I only made 8 so halved all ingredients)

16 wonton wrappers
40g melted butter
16 small squares of dark chocolate
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons caster sugar

Chocolate squares in place

Here's what you do:

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a tray with baking paper. Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl or cup.

With a brush (I actually used a new paintbrush as I didn't have a kitchen brush, must buy!)   coat the 3 edges of the wontons with melted butter and place a small chocolate square on one half. Place it close to the front edge as otherwise the when you close the wonton it won't seal properly. Fold over the wontons and press the edges together to seal.

Put the wontons on the baking tray, brush over with butter and sprinkle with the sugar & cinnamon mix. Bake for 8mins or until golden.

These were seriously delicious and my husband and i ate them so quickly. Serve with ice-cream, strawberries. Also, you could experiment with putting other treats in the wontons. On Donna Hay's site she has a recipe for Apple & Chocolate wontons - yum!

Smells so good... yum!